I  think  he  likes  to sit out back
                             where he once sat
with all his yard in view
  his chair is gone but he is there
                                    he sits in mine
                                   I saw him once
                      while pacing through
the house at 3 am
                       I stopped and stared
                       and rapped the glass
to see if he’d respond
                                                  instead­              
he looked away..
                
      he must have heard novenas
for the dead..
      
                         I saw his tired stare
                                        the thin hair
                         on his balding head
wispy with static electricity
  the liver spots across his brow
                       a prominent display
of reckless living                    
                                 his body lay flat
against the chair
               like a life-sized playing card
                         with hands and feet
from Alice in Wonderland

                                             I wonder
does he miss the rabbits?

                  I looked for him again
                                             last night
                            at quarter after 2
           I wanted to tell him its ok
   to use my chair to reminisce..
  
               nostalgia tends to look
                                             like love
to those who are without..

                 perhaps another night
                            I’ll see him there
                              within my chair
and maybe we can talk
I’d do my best to comfort him
             and put his mind at ease
                             about the things
he’s now without
        like this old house he built
                                        I’d tell him
I will be there soon
                                    soon enough
from his perspective
                                            by grace
50 years from mine                
                we’ll sit and talk about
                  the days we lived and
loved here..

                              *I am not naïve
                    I know he is a ghost
but I am not afraid

I always feel my best with pulsing veins
of Absolut or Johnnie Walker neat,
or devil’s dust to take away my pain,
a thin syringe injecting hell’s deceit.
Though sorrow loses strength with needle sting
and moods arise with belts of liquid heat,
I know the tingling twitch will always bring
electric blood when morning comes to greet.
But still I struggle with the current’s craze,
euphoric numb that always plugs and sways
the battle in-between the nights and days,
the sunset hour with all its shades of grays
where all the choices made are surely wrong-
I wake at dusk and start my morning strong.

If only the crucified trees
could speak or scream
and tell us where to cast our gaze.
“To the sky!” they’d say,
where cotton candy clouds
are pink plumes of possibility.

If only these crucified trees
could speak or scream
above the howling wind
then maybe just maybe
our salty sweat of toil
could somehow be sweetened
by their resolute will.

What the trees once were
will always be,
their scars remain the tortured skin,
weathered trunks, empty souls
and empty pockets… yet still
they find a way to feed and
nurture blossoming buds.

….if only we might lift our eyes
and learn from the trees…

I went to that well again and again
And never refused what my lips desired,
But after a while I knew deep within
The cost would be steep for what I acquired.
I turned a deaf ear and then a blind eye,
The well was defiled and yet I still drew
And drank my bitter fill of every lie,
Until I was nauseous with what I knew.
Then daybreak’s dawning and with it came grace.
My soul was washed in an epiphanous rain
That fell on me like a lover’s embrace
To grant me ablution erasing the stain
That clouded my eyes and hindered my heart
-I’ll never again feel life’s torn apart.

The push of truth, the pull of lies,
The pull of hell that push denies.
The push of God, the pull of sin,
The pull of what I push will win.

To find myself, to lose my soul,
To lose my pain to find control,
To find the norm, to lose my peace,
To lose it all I’ll find release.

The mad deny, the sane enjoy,
The sane build up what mad destroy.
The mad in me, the sane in you,
The sane believe what mad pursue.

To stay in love, to go alone,
To go with you and stay unknown.
To stay within, to go without,
To go to where I stay in doubt.

To give in love, to take in lust,
To take it all to give my trust.
To give to you, to take as wife,
To take your hand I’d give my life.

The day is here, the night is done.
The night was long but day has won.
The daylight comes, the nighttime brings,
The night in love; The day with wings.

To feel the chill of nothingness again
  as aching cold of callous winter days
    and be alone without your tender touch
        or live again without your fire’s blaze

I’d rather die behind a frozen wall
   of crystal river rising toward the sky
      a fall of hopes and dreams in solid state
         a waterfall of ice before my eyes

Than live another day without you near
   confined by winter's grip of idle wait
     or spring to blossom where the dying sleep
         in petrified attachment to their fate

Our spring has sprung the time to melt is now
  if only ‘cause  we choose to face our fears
    the icy walls that numb the days that were

      ….let’s take this chance to fight those frozen years